What Do You Think?

The question posted Monday on The Herald-Mail's Web site was: Given the potential for massive oil spills like the one occurring in the Gulf of Mexico, do you support an expansion of offshore drilling?

Poll results:

Yes -- 566 votes (69 percent)

No -- 254 votes (31 percent)

o "Our energy independence/national security in part requires us to go get the oil wherever we have it until we have developed enough technology to reduce or eliminate our addiction for foreign oil. Of course, we should understand what happened and take the necessary precautions so that it never happens again but to increase our dependence on foreign oil because of one accident is an overreaction."

o "Take necessary steps to stop this from happening again. We also need to continue to find other safer and healthier resources other than oil. I, like most, hate depending on these foreign countries."

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o "The time to start weaning ourselves from our oil dependence is now. The money that could be used to drill for additional oil should be used for renewable sources of energy instead."

o "A faster response could have helped contain the damage better but apparently we haven't learned much from Katrina."

o "I'm all for getting off of oil, but what are our alternatives? Batteries? They're even more harmful to the environment! Hydrogen is a great option, but that technology is still a good ways down the road and presents a host of new problems itself. Reality is that oil is our only readily available source of motor fuel and we don't need to bind our hands in these already difficult times."

o "We're not weaning ourselves from foreign oil. Our per capita energy use continues to rise. Fuel efficiency, retrofits and other measures are slowing the rate of increase but we are in no way using less. A Toyota Prius is only negligibly more green than a Hummer. Both are massively unsustainable. The sooner we convert to renewables and learn to live within a limited energy budget, the sooner we will no longer need oil."

o"Drill, baby, drill! Technologies, procedures and safety has improved immensely to enable us the ability to be drill precisely where we need to drill. We need to quit sucking off foreign oil and keep the money here in the U.S.A. and even sell and make profit from our own oil."

o "We could not even come close to energy independence based on our own supply. Even if we drilled every drop from our own reserves we would still fall short. We use far too much fuel to become independent of foreign oil."

o "The following is from the coalition for energy independence: 'The fact is that there is enough oil and natural gas in the U.S. for 100 to 200 years with the known resources currently in existence; natural gas being a major component.'"

o "All new energy developed should be green. We should not spend money to expand drilling and on nuclear energy. That money should only be used to expand green energy."